SP Newsprint Completes $6.7 Million Energy Efficiency Upgrade

September 12, 2007

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SP Newsprint, a general partnership equally owned by Cox Enterprises, McClatchy and Media General, has completed $6.7 million in energy efficiency upgrades to its Clackamas, Oregon paper recycling plant and Newberg newsprint plant. The company received a $1 million incentive check from Energy Trust of Oregon’s Production Efficiency program to help offset project costs. The company says that the improvements will save it $2.8 million a year on energy, boost capacity for paper recycling and improve newsprint quality.With all measures installed, Ed Smith, corporate energy manager at SP Newsprint, expects energy consumption to be reduced by 57 million kilowatt hours, equivalent to the total amount of electricity used by nearly 5,800 Oregon homes each year.

The company says it substantially reduced energy consumption by expanding its capacity to use recycled paper, rather than woodchips, as a raw ingredient in making newsprint. SP Newsprint is reducing energy consumption by expanding its more energy-efficient deinking process to turn recycled paper into pulp. The first phase of the improvements included upgrading the company’s paper recycling facility in Clackamas to improve the quality and quantity of recycled paper shipped to the deink plant in Newberg. The upgrades at the two plants enable the production of an additional 90 tons per day of recycled pulp at the Newberg newsprint mill.

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